Warner Bros. | 683 Mins. | 1945-1956 | Unrated
Three years after the last release, Warner Bros. has returned with the fifth volume of their Film Noir Classics Collection. While there may not be any immediately recognizable films in this eight movie, four disc set, there are definitely a few gems to be found for fans of the noir genre. The titles here clearly come from deep in the vault. A few are directed by well respected talents in the industry and feature recognizable character actors in lead roles. So, while casual fans of noir may give this one a pass, for those that want to dig a little deeper into the genre this set is perfect.
Desperate (1947): Anthony Mann (Railroaded!, Raw Deal) directs this tale of a couple on the run. Steve Brodie stars as Steve Randall,an upstanding truckdriver who still brings flowers home to his wife, Anne (Audrey Long). He gets a call saying he can make a quick $50 for one night’s work. The problem is, he’s been booked by an old buddy from the neighborhood, Walt Radak (Raymond Burr), and instead of hauling legitimate goods, Radak’s gang intends to unload someone else’s warehouse into the back of Steve’s trailer. When Steve tries to stop them, a cop ends up dead and Walt’s little brother goes to jail. Walt wants Steve to turn himself in, or he’ll Anne. Believing he has no other choice, Steve grabs the wife and goes on the lam.
Based on a story developed by Mann, and Dorothy Atlas, with a screenplay by Harry Essex (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?), Desperate doesn’t have the tightest of plots and is probably best described as all over the place. Steve runs to one hiding place, returns to the city to try to clear his name, runs back to the hiding place, runs to the next, tries to send the missus further away, etc. It requires a small suspension of disbelief to keep it all going. Time stretches, the cops look one way and then the next, and it’s all a bit far-fetched. The standout here is Raymond as the villain. We would see shades of that again, when he appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film Rear Window; though to generations of fans, Raymond Burr will always be synonymous with Perry Mason and Ironside.
Cornered (1944): Directed by the esteemed Edward Dmytryk (Broken Lance, Crossfire), Cornered is a post-War suspense picture, starring Dick Powell in his first role after playing Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet. Powell stars as Laurence Gerard, a Canadian pilot who fought in occupied France. While there, he met and married a French girl. He left her there, and attempted to get her a passport back to Canada. While he was gone, a collaborator sold her out to the enemy. Hellbent on revenge, Gerard launches a search for her killer, Marcel Jarnac (Luther Adler), only to find he has reportedly killed himself; believing that to be a lie, Laurence travels to Buenos Aires in search of Jarnac’s widow (Micheline Cheirel).
In Argentina, Gerard finds himself in the middle of a convoluted network of ex-patriots. Some want to protect Jarnac, others deny he is still around, and still others claim to have the same goal as Gerard. He doesn’t know who to trust, so he chooses to trust no one, though most of the time, when he thinks he’s playing them, they are playing him.
The Phenix City Story (1955): Directed by Phil Karlson, The Phenix City Story was a highly fictionalized account of true-life events. Run by the mob, Phenix City, Alabama is a den of drugs, guns and prostitutes. The film opens with a journalist interviewing actual locals, a strange choice given the highly fictionalized account of events that follows. The film is punctuated by wobbly camerawork, inflated performances from the professionals (look ‘for a young Richard Kiley), and stilted performances from the extras, played by Alabama locals. The Phenix City Story isn’t afraid of a little violence to stir things up, as a murdered African-American girl is shown being unceremoniously tossed out of a speeding car.
Dial 1119 (1950): Directed by Gerald Mayer, nephew of Louis B. Mayer, Dial 1119 stars Marshall Thompson as Gunther Wyckoff, an emotionally disturbed man who pulls a gun at a bar and holds the patrons hostage. As the police begin to congregate outside, the film exams each customer, all of whom have their own issues. Wyckoff is on the verge of killing everyone when a telephoned ruse breaks the tension.
A solid script and a good cast, keep Dial 1119 from becoming just another gunplay/hostage picture. Virginia Field stands out as Freddy, an alcoholic with a caustic sense of humor.
Armored Car Robbery (1950): Though the title tells you exactly what this film is about, the robbery happens rather early in the picture. The bulk of the story is about the aftermath. When the heist doesn’t go as planned, the gang of crooks is on the run, and their hard-bitten leader, Dave (William Talman, ), isn’t about to let anything get in the way of escaping with the loot, not even members of his gang. Adding to the pressure is the fact that Dave killed a cop when fleeing the scene, and someaning his partner (Charles McGraw) has extra motivation for seeing justice done.
Even at a short 68 minutes, director Richard Fleischer (The Narrow Margin) seems to be taking his time unraveling the story. What the picture lacks in urgency, however, it makes up for in detail. Armored Car Robbery allows us to see just about every aspect of the manhunt. Fleischer and writers Earl Felton and Gerald Drayson Adams use all the building blocks at their disposal to put together a solid movie, one that operates on a fairly sturdy sense of logic.
Crime in the Streets (1956): Directed by Don Siegel (Dirty Harry), this might not be a typical film noir, but it’s a pretty solid juvenile delinquent picture. Crime in the Streets introduced the world to John Cassavetes, in a memorable performance as Frankie, an angry young man looking for something to lash out against. Frankie is the leader of a street gang called the Hornets, as proclaimed on the back of their satin jackets. We are first introduced to them in a street rumble, which Siegel stylishly boxes into the opening credits. The Hornets are getting revenge against some rivals for roughing up their youngest member, Baby (Sal Mineo). When a neighbor sees one of the kids has a zip gun, he reports him and gets him arrested. Frankie decides the best revenge would be to kill the old man (Malcolm Atterbury) and make Baby and another kid (Mark Rydell) go along with the plan.
Frankie lives alone in a tiny apartment with his mom (Virginia Gregg) and little brother (Peter Votrian), and it’s implied that not only did Frankie take a beating from his old man, but he and the younger brother might not even have the same father. There are a lot of questions about what makes one teen go bad and another stay good, and one of the best scenes in the movie features Baby’s father (Will Kuluva) asking him just that. Siegel frames it so that Mineo is in the forefront, pushed to the right of frame, and Kuluva is behind him, pleading with him. Mineo barely has any lines, but he’s constantly reacting. I’ve always felt that Sal Mineo was an unrated actor, and he continues to prove it here.
Backfire (1950): Directed by Vincent Sherman (Mr. Skeffington, The Hasty Heart) Backfire is a post-war drama. While healing from severe spinal injuries in a hospital bed, war veteran Bob Corey receives a visit from a mystery woman in the middle of the night, who warns Bob that his best friend Steve is practically on his death bed with his life very much hanging in the balance. Things get even worse for Bob as he gets wrapped up in a murder mystery that will test his wits and endurance as he attempts first-hand to put the puzzle pieces together and try to figure out who killed whom. There are enough twists and turns to make Backfire a reasonably entertaining film.
Deadline at Dawn (1946): Based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich, with a screenplay by Clifford Odets, the inspiration for Barton Fink and the writer of many a classic film, including Sweet Smell of Success. Unsurprisingly, Deadline at Dawn is one of the more structurally interesting films in Film Noir Classic Collection, Vol. 5. As the title suggests, it takes place over the course of one night. In New York City, a country-boy sailor named Alex (Bill Williams) on leave ends up drinking too much and absconding with a date’s cash. When he goes to give it back to her, he finds her dead. Due to get on a bus and return to base in the morning, he’s determined to clear his name by then.
Alex ends up enlisting the help of another city transplant. June (Susan Hayward) is also from out of town, but she’s been in New York long enough to have given up her acting career for taxi dancing at a skeevy club. She takes pity on the baby-faced kid, and the two try to recreate what could have happened after the murder. They track down various suspects, including people the woman was blackmailing and her brother, a well-known gangster (Joseph Calleia).
Deadline at Dawn gives us glimpses of the varying denizens of the city. There is the man who is obsessed with June and wears gloves on his hands to cover a rash, and the blind piano player who was shaking down the shakedown artist. In one of the more unique scenes, Alex follows a nervous fellow who he suspects of being the murderer, but the man turns out to be trying to find a vet to save his cat. The feline choked on a chicken bone, and by the time the man gets to where he’s going, it’s dead. That’s just the kind of scene that screams noir.
Two of the movies in Film Noir Classic Collection, vol. 5 are presented in black-and-white widescreen. The Phenix City Story and Crime in the Streets are matted to preserve their aspect ratios, while the rest of the films conform to their more standard full frame presentations. All of the movies look fairly good; with only a minor amount of scratching and debris (Crime in the Streets has the most noticeable print noise). The blacks are pretty solid, if not super strong, and the contrast looks pretty solid.
The set-up for each disc begins with a main menu that is a split-screen for both movies featured. Select the one you want, and the DVD takes you to an individual menu for that film, where you can choose to play it, choose subtitles, or back up to the main menu, or for the two films with theatrical trailers, you can select those.
All of the films are mixed in mono and sound fine.
Subtitles are available for the deaf and hearing impaired, as well as alternate language subtitles in French and Spanish.
There are no special features available outside of two trailers: one for Cornered and the other for Dial 1119.
